Hawkeye
and Winter Soldier are in Sausalito, California, spying on Natasha Romanoff,
the Black Widow, who has been missing for three months. They find her living in
a comfortable suburban home under the name Natalie Grey with a man whom she
loves and she looks uncharacteristically happy. As she is in the garage, Clint
approaches her, claiming to be admiring her new motorcycle. They chat and she describes
her life as an architect, with a fiancé James—and a one-year-old son named
Stevie. She does not appear to recognize Clint at all. Clint reports back to
Bucky that everything seems to be what it is: Nat has a happy homelife as a
civilian….
Later,
she and James are going out and leaving Stevie with a sitter named Helen.
Arcade, spying on Nat, discovers Clint and Bucky hiding in the bushes; he
reports this to his superiors who tell him to ignore the two interlopers,
pleased that Clint’s visit was a better test than they could have devised and
go back to concentrating on the sitter. Downtown, Natalie and James have just
parted when she hears a cry for help from an alley. She investigates to find a
gang has captured a woman with rape and worse on their minds. Nat beats the living
hell out of the five creeps, allowing the victim to escape, then calling 911.
She returns home to relieve the sitter, checks on the baby, then goes into the
garage where she builds a bomb out of a smoke detector—and then recoils in
shock, wondering what she has just done….